Welsh Journals

WELSH POLITICS AND PARLIAMENTARY REFORM, 1780-1832 THE parliamentary representation given to Wales in the reign of Henry VIII remained virtually unchanged for three centuries. By the two acts of parliament of 1536 and 1542-43, known collectively as the Act of Union, Wales was allocated twenty-seven members to sit at Westminster, fourteen representing the counties and thirteen the boroughs.1 Each of the principality's shires was given one member, with the exception of Monmouthshire, which received two. The question as to whether Monmouthshire was English or Welsh was not clarified by the Act of Union. The award of two county members was on the English model, while the borough constituency was created on the Welsh pattern of contributory boroughs.2 The county franchise was an extension of the English system, namely, the uniform forty- shilling freehold qualification. By the beginning of the seventeenth century, it was a generally accepted procedure that non-residents could vote at county elections.3 The county franchise remained unaltered until the Reform Act of 1832. The only changes in the Welsh representative system concerned the composition of the borough constituencies. Each shire town except Merioneth returned one member to parliament. This solitary exclusion arose from the fact that Merioneth contained no borough considered worthy of the franchise.4 By the Act of Union, all the ancient boroughs that contributed towards the payment of the wages of the representative were to participate in his election.5 In this way, there evolved the distinctive Welsh system of contribu- tory boroughs. The franchise right of each borough depended initially on the payment of wages, despite the fact that even at the time of the 1 For the Act of Union, see I. Bowen, The Statutes of Wales (1908), pp. 89-90. This question is fully discussed in E. Havill, 'The Parliamentary Representation of Monmouthshire and the Monmouth Boroughs, 1536-1832' (unpublished University of Wales M.A. thesis, 1949), pp. 15-16. E. and A. G. Porritt, The Unreformed House of Commons (2 vols., 1909), I, 24. 4 T. H. B. Oldfield wrote: 'There being no borough proves that some regard was had at the time of Henry VIII to the equality of representation, and that care was taken not to constitute a representative body without constituents'. History of the Boroughs (3 vols., 1792), III, 34. 5 Bowen, op. cit., pp. 90, 134-35.